McAuliffe was a social studies teacher at Concord High School. She was picked from among 11,000 candidates to be the first teacher and private citizen in space.

If you scroll down past the pictures, there is a link to an incredible interactive that NASA has posted to their site.

Christa McAuliffe tries out the commander’s seat on the flight deck of a shuttle simulator at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on September 13, 1985.

The space shuttle Challenger exploded 25 years ago today, on January 28, 1986.

In this Jan. 28, 1986 file photo, the space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, react after they witnessed the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986.

Visit NASA’s website to read more about the seven crew members who lost their lives on Challenger’s final mission. They have posted an interactive titled ‘Day of Remembrance‘ that is definitely worth a peek.

Additionally, below are a few tweets in remembrance of this tragic accident.

Remembering the Challenger crew today. The NASA family lost 7 of its own on Jan. 28, 1986. http://t.co/hkpMIrAA

Mike MacDonald is a news editor and writer at Postmedia. His writing also appears weekly in The Onion. When not working, Michael can be found playing crunchy grooves on his ukulele in his Toronto home... read more.View author's profile